beautify

English

Etymology

From Middle English beutifien, from Old French beaute (“beauty”), from Latin bellus (“beautiful, fine”), + -ify, from Latin facio (“make”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈbjuː.tɪ.faɪ/

• Audio (Southern England)

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Verb

beautify (third-person singular simple present beautifies, present participle beautifying, simple past and past participle beautified)

1. (transitive) To make beautiful; to increase the beauty of.

   Synonyms: adorn, decorate, ornament, prettify

   Antonyms: blight, deface, disfigure, mar, uglify

   • 1592, Robert Greene, Greene's Groats-Worth of Wit, London: William Wright, “Robertoes Tale”

     there is an vpstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tygers hart wrapt in a Players hyde, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blanke verse as the best of you:

   • c. 1607–1608, William Shakeſpeare, The Late, And much admired Play, Called Pericles, Prince of Tyre. , London: Imprinted at London for Henry Goſſon,  , published 1609, →OCLC, [Act V, scene 3]:

     And now, / This ornament / Makes me look dismal will I clip to form; / And what this fourteen years no razor touch’d, / To grace thy marriage-day, I’ll beautify.

   • 1817 (date written), [Jane Austen], chapter V, in Persuasion; published in Northanger Abbey: And Persuasion. , volumes (please specify |volume=III or IV), London: John Murray, , 20 December 1817 (indicated as 1818), →OCLC, page 89:

     […] she was at the other end of the room, beautifying a nosegay;

   • 1909, Lucy Maud Montgomery, chapter 15, in Anne of Avonlea‎, Boston: L.C. Page, page 171:

     “ […] I’m so thankful for friendship. It beautifies life so much.”

   • 1954, Sam Selvon, The Lonely Londoners‎, London: Longman, page 109:

     ‘Boy, you take a big chance,’ Moses say. ‘Them pigeons there to beautify the park, not to eat. The people over here will kill you if you touch a fly.’

2. (intransitive, rare) To become beautiful.
   • 1719, Joseph Addison, “Upon the Immortality of the Soul”, in Maxims, Observations, and Reflections‎, London: E. Curll, page 88:

     […] it must be a Prospect pleasing to God himself, to see his Creation for ever beautifying in his Eyes, and drawing nearer to him, by greater Degrees of Resemblance.

3. (intransitive, rare) To make oneself beautiful.
   • 2002, Alice Sebold, chapter 13, in The Lovely Bones‎, London: Picador, page 156:

     She’d felt silly when she first put cucumbers on her eyes (to diminish puffiness), or oatmeal on her face (to cleanse the pores and absorb excess oils), or egg yolks in her hair (to make it shine). Her use of groceries had even made my mother laugh, then wonder if she should start to beautify.

4. (computing) Synonym of pretty-print

   Synonym: prettify

   Antonyms: minify, uglify

Related terms

• beautification
• beautifier
• beautifiable
• beautifying

Translations